Bolivia's Coca Crops

Published: October 22, 2003

To the Editor:

Re ''Coca Culture,'' by Leonida Zurita-Vargas (Op-Ed, Oct. 15):

Bolivian law allows 12,000 hectares of coca to be cultivated in the Yungas region for purposes like chewing, tea and shampoo. However, Bolivia had more than twice that amount under cultivation just last year, with the trend going upward. In 1997, Bolivia's coca cultivation of more than 45,000 hectares could produce about 200 metric tons of cocaine, hardly an argument that coca was being planted for traditional local use.

The vast majority of coca being grown in Bolivia today is sold to the illicit drug market. That's why many coca growers have been replanting so quickly after successful eradication efforts against illegal coca conducted by the Bolivian government.

President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada's free-market, pro-United States policies were not to blame for Bolivia's economic woes. A more reasonable conclusion would be that hitching Bolivia's future to coca cultivation could relegate it to permanent backwater status.